 An Islamist militant group based in Russia's North Caucases has claimed the killing last month of an Orthodox priest who was an outspoken critic of Islam."One of our brothers who has never been to the Caucases took up the oath of (former independent Chechen president Doku Umarov) and expressed his desire to execute the damned Sysoyev," said a statement on the Kavkazcenter.com website. Daniil Sysoyev, 35, was killed on November 20 when masked gunman walked into Saint Thomas's church in southern Moscow and shot him four times.Doku Umarov emerged as the leader of the remaining active rebel movements in the North Caucases in 2007 and is considered enemy number one in the region by Russian authorities. The statement on the Kavkazcenter.com website, which is often used by militants, accused Sysoyev of writing several pamphlets insulting Islam. ( more) Source: AFP (English)
 By Amie Ferris-Rotman Amie Ferris-rotman GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) – Adam, 52, keeps his three wives in different towns to stop them squabbling, but the white-bearded Chechen adds he might soon take a fourth. "Chechnya is Muslim, so this is our right as men. They (the wives) spend time together, but do not always see eye to eye," said the soft-spoken pensioner, who only gave his first name. Hardline Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov is vying with insurgents for authority in a land ravaged by two secessionist wars with Moscow. Each side is claiming Islam as its flag of legitimacy, each reviles the other as criminal and blasphemous. Wary of the dangers of separatism in a vast country, Moscow watches uneasily as central power yields to Islamic tenets. It must chose what it might see as the lesser of two evils. Though polygamy is illegal in Russia, the southern Muslim region of Chechnya encourages the practice, arguing it is allowed by sharia law and the Koran, Islam's holiest book. By Russian law, Adam is only married to his first wife of 28 years, Zoya, the plump, blue-eyed mother of his three children, with whom he shares a home on the outskirts of the regional capital Grozny. His "marriages" to the other two -- squirreled away in villages nearby -- were carried out in elaborate celebrations and are recognized by Chechen authorities. The head of Chechnya's Center for Spiritual-Moral Education, Vakha Khashkanov, set up by Kadyrov a year ago, said Islam should take priority over laws of the Russian constitution. "If it is allowed in Islam, it is not up for discussion," he told Reuters near Europe's largest mosque, which glistens in central Grozny atop the grounds where the Communist party had its headquarters before the Soviet Union fell in 1991. "As long as you can feed your wives, and there's equality amongst them, then polygamy is allowed in Chechnya," he added. Islam is flourishing in Chechnya which, along with its neighbors Dagestan and Ingushetia, is combating an Islamist insurgency which aims to create a Muslim, sharia-based state separate from Russia across the North Caucasus. Though Islam first arrived in the North Caucasus around 500 years ago, in Dagestan's ancient walled city of Derbent on the Caspian Sea, religion under Communism was strongly discouraged. Kadyrov, like most of his region's one million people, is Sufi, a mystical branch of Islam which places a greater focus on prayer and recitation. Political analysts say that in exchange for successfully hunting out Islamist fighters, the Kremlin turns a blind eye to Kadyrov's Muslim-inspired rules. Today Grozny's cafes hold men sipping smuggled beer out of teacups as alcohol has been all but banned, single-sex schools and gyms are becoming the norm and women must cover their heads in government buildings. Clad in a tight hijab, Asya Malsagova, who advises Kadyrov on human rights issues and heads a state council dealing with the rights of Chechen prisoners, told Reuters: "We believe every woman should have a choice -- but we prefer she covers up." Against the backdrop of a bubbling Islamist insurgency, Islam's revival has also brought violence against those who do not live by sharia law in the North Caucasus -- a region the Kremlin has described as its biggest political domestic problem. Islamist militants, who label Kadyrov and other regional bosses as "infidels" for siding with Moscow, have been behind attacks on women they say worked as prostitutes in Dagestan and murders of alcohol-sellers in Ingushetia. In Chechnya and Ingushetia, rebel fighters who regularly carry out armed attacks on police are celebrated as "martyrs" by Islamist news sites with links to the insurgency. HOLY CAMELS Dirt roads lead the way to Chechnya's first camel farm, about 55 km (34 miles) northwest of Grozny, where 46 of the two-humped creatures munch on salt and grass while they are groomed to be gifts for dowries and religious holidays. Considered holy animals in Islam, they sell for 58,000 roubles ($1,886) each, said Umar Guchigov, the director of the farm, which opened just over a year ago under Kadyrov's command, and plans are in place to build three more in Chechnya. "So many people, simple people, congratulated us for bringing back this ancient tradition," Guchigov said. Animals are also being used to reintroduce Islam at Chechnya's round-the-clock Muslim television channel, where 60 young bearded men and headscarved women create children's programs in large studios adorned with photos of Mecca. A bevy of bumble bees joyfully scream "Salam Alaikum" (Peace be with you) upon entering the studio of Ruslan Ismailov, who is making a full-length cartoon on hi-tech Apple computers for the channel, which is called "Put," meaning "The Way" in Russian. "The bees appeal to children, and they will teach them how to live properly by the Muslim faith," Ismailov said. Set up two years ago by the state and broadcast to thousands across the North Caucasus, instantly becoming one of the top channels in the region, it also features programs for women on how to keep home and reading of the Koran throughout the night. "It's no secret what Chechnya has been through," said the channel's general director Adam Shakhidov, sporting a ginger beard and traditional black velvet cap. "Two wars, the Soviet Union and today's Muslim extremism... it's time to show the true beauty of Sufism and install the basis for sharia," he said. Reuters 
 MOSCOW — Police released a composite sketch Monday of a man thought to be involved in the bombing of a Moscow-to-St. Petersburg train that killed 26 people, and a railroad official suggested the attack had the hallmarks of terrorism by insurgents from volatile North Caucasus. Authorities say Friday night's derailment of a train speeding from Moscow to St. Petersburg was caused by a bomb planted on the tracks. The blast gouged out a five-foot crater and sent the final three carriages of the 14-car Nevsky Express hurtling off the rails. A second explosive device partially detonated at the crash site Saturday as railway workers were clearing debris. Terrorism has been a major concern in Russia since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, as Chechen rebels have clashed with government forces in two wars and Islamist separatists continue to target law enforcement officials. A high-level official of the state-run railroad company official suggested militants from North Caucasus were likely behind the attack, citing the second explosion that he said was a hallmark of the insurgents. "The second explosion, which occurred some time later, is the so-called double-blast method, which is carried out by North Caucasus sabotage groups," Alexander Bobreshov, a vice-president of Russian Railways, said on Ekho Moskvy radio. More at Foxnews
 AT least 22 people have been killed and 54 injured after a train travelling between the Russian capital Moscow and Saint Petersburg derailed, possibly as a result of a terrorist attack. Four wagons of the Nevski Express linking the two cities came off the tracks late on Friday evening in the Novgorod region, a railways official told the Ria-Novosti news agency.
Russia's state-run Itar-Tass news agency quoted the emergencies ministry and a railway official as saying that 22 people were dead and 54 others injured.
A unnamed security official was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that a one metre-diameter crater was found near the scene of the disaster.
"Witnesses say they heard a loud bang before the accident. This could be proof of an attack,'' the source said.
A railways official also told Itar-Tass that "an attack is one of the possibilities'' being looked at by the police.
 AT the sight of his son on the television screen, dressed in a camouflage jacket and cradling an AK-47 assault rifle, Buhari Barayev was overcome. Tears welled as the young terrorist declared he had taken hundreds of innocent people hostage and would die a martyr unless the Kremlin halted the war in Chechnya.
It was the first time Mr Barayev had seen the interview I conducted with his son Movsar during the Moscow theatre siege seven years ago. Movsar, who led about 40 Chechen terrorists, had captured more than 800 theatre-goers. Two days after I entered the building to speak to him, he and his gunmen were dead, killed by Russian special forces. At least 129 hostages also died. "I'm proud of my son -- he died a martyr for his country," said Mr Barayev, who lost 25 relatives, including two brothers, in Chechnya's wars with Russia. "But taking innocent people hostage was a mistake. I didn't support that. It was a wrong and pointless act that would achieve nothing. However, that's no reason to stop loving him. He acted out of despair." Mr Barayev, 56, has devoted most of his life to the cause of an independent Chechnya, but in a remarkable change of heart, he has switched sides to support Ramzan Kadyrov, 33, the ruthless, pro-Kremlin President of Chechnya. The President, who is fiercely loyal to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, telephoned Mr Barayev in Austria, where he had spent 10 years in exile, to ask him back and guarantee his safety. Mr Kadyrov, whose security forces have been repeatedly accused of abducting, torturing and murdering his opponents, greeted Mr Barayev at the airport and drove him to his home for a banquet. He gave him a Volga car and is said to be helping him financially. Read more here,,,, Source: The Australian
By Robert Spencer Good thing the repressive, short-sighted and bloodthirsty Russian regime is aiding the jihad in Iran, eh?
This shows how many Muslim hearts and minds that policy is winning for them.
Ramadan Mubarak from Chechnya: "Female suicide bomber strikes Chechen capital," by Vitor Vilaskas for AFP, September 16 GROZNY, Russia -- Several people were injured on Wednesday when a female suicide bomber blew herself up on the busy central street of Chechnya's capital, undercutting Russia's claims to have restored stability. Two police and up to six civilians were hurt in the attack on Grozny's newly-restored Putin Street, renamed last year after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and a symbol of the city's reconstruction after war. Putin Street. Oh, the irony.
"Two policeman from the Chechen interior ministry forces were injured. There are also casualties among civilians," a spokeswoman for the local investigative committee, Mariam Nalayeva, told AFP. The Interfax news agency said that up to six civilians had been injured but the authorities denied initial reports of fatalities. The early morning blast was caused by a "middle-aged, female suicide bomber" who approached a police car, she said. Russian news agencies said the bomber's head and other body parts were found at the blast scene....
But Chechnya's strongman president Ramzan Kadyrov denied the region was facing a new security crisis....
"We should not focus only on the North Caucasus. Wahhabism is everyone's problem," he said, referring to the strain of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia but commonly equated with militant Islam by Russian officials.
"In London people arebblowing [sic] themselves up, and in America -- everywhere they are blowing themselves up," said the leader, known for his outspoken comments.... Sure. Might as well aid the jihad some more, eh? After all, the Western governments are aiding the Palestinians. What could go wrong? Source: JihadWatch
 Jihad Watch 02 September By Hugh Fitzgerald “Chechen rebels have today called for prominent separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev to be killed, saying he has abandoned Islam.” – from this news article Zakeyev is to be killed not because he is himself a bully-boy and murderer (he is both of those things), but because -- nota bene -- he has "fallen away from Islam."
That is the only category that makes sense for Muslims. Mere corruption or murder of opponents is not enough.
The Ruler is to be obeyed, unless his behavior can be characterized as not that of a Muslim. There is no appeal to universal principles of morality. It is not that this family has appropriated much of the nation’s wealth, or that ruler has appointed all of his cousins to high positions, or that the sons of that other ruler go around raping girls with impunity. Had Zakeyev been someone else, someone just as vicious and murderous as he is, but merely an indigenous lord of Muslim misrule, instead of, as Zakeyev is, a local enforcer for the Russians, then only the usual handful of the intellectually and morally advanced would have been against him. The rest would have been subservient to the ruler’s authority. Despotism comes naturally to Muslim polities. Look at the Muslim-dominated countries. There are 57 members of the O.I.C. How many of those dominated by Muslims are at all "democratic"? How many hold elections, but the elections are farcical? How many Arab Muslim countries are ruled by families who seize much of the nation's wealth -- or demurely, by now, merely have it appropriated --- such as the Al-Maktoum of Dubai, the Al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the Al-Thani of Qatar, the Al-Sabah of Kuwait, and so on? Read more here,,,, Source: Europe News
 MOSCOW. (Maxim Krans, RIA Novosti political commentator) - On September 1, 2004, The North Caucasus town of Beslan became know to the world for a tragic reason. A terrorist group took hostage 1,128 people who gathered at a local school on that day; two days later, 319 hostages including 187 children were killed in the storming of the building. Hundreds of schoolchildren and their relatives were injured. Full story and Source: Atlas
 Chechen rebels have today called for prominent separatist leader Akhmed Zakayev to be killed, saying he has abandoned Islam. Zakayev, who lives in London, represents the moderate wing of the separatist movement and has clashed with radical Islamic insurgents in Russia's southern republic of Chechnya. An Islamic rebel website said Zakayav had recognised the authority of Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of the region. 'Public remarks show that he (Zakayev) has fallen away from Islam,' the website said, adding that Doku Umarov, Chechnya's most wanted separatist leader, was behind the order. 'The court has ruled that the killing of this apostate is a duty for Muslims.' It did not say what court had issued the ruling. Zakayev, 50, fought against Russia as a senior rebel commander in two wars with Moscow from 1994 to 2000.
After Russia regained control of the province, he fled to Europe and acted as an official rebel envoy until 2007. Russia has tried to extradite Zakayev for 13 alleged crimes including kidnapping and murder, but a British court rejected the request in 2003, causing a diplomatic row. Kadyrov said last month that he would welcome Zakayev's return and possibly offer him a job in the regional culture ministry. But there were no indications Russia was ready to drop charges against him. Kadyrov faces strong criticism from human rights bodies after kidnappings and killings of human rights and charity activists in Chechnya.
He denies any link to the killings. Source: Mail Online
H/T: JihadWatch
 At least four policemen have been killed in two suicide bomb attacks in the capital of Russia's mainly Muslim republic of Chechnya, officials said. Ruslan Alkhanov, the Chechen interior minister, said the two suicide attackers detonated their explosives on bicycles near checkpoints in the city of Grozny. "One suicide bomb was detonated four metres from a police car, killing two officers," he said on Friday. He said that two other police officers died and one was injured in the second attack. Blood and body parts could be seen near the charred remains of a bicycle and a police car at the site one of the explosions. Neave Barker, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Moscow, said: "This is certainly an indication of another significantly sized attack by insurgents against the pro-Kremlin authorities in the Caucasus." Grozny, the Chechen capital, has seen a series of bombings in recent months, ending years of relative calm in the city during a rebuilding campaign by Ramzan Kadyrov, the regional president. Read more here ...Source: Al Jazeera (English)
Tony Halpin | August 18
CARNAGE returned to the Caucasus yesterday when a suicide bomber killed 20 people and wounded 138 by ramming a truck loaded with explosives into a police station in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia.
The attack in the city of Nazran undermined claims by the Kremlin that it had restored order to the North Caucasus - a region where Islamic militancy is gaining ground in the face of biting poverty and a brutal government crackdown.
The bombing was timed to coincide with morning roll call at the police headquarters, which was devastated in the blast. Prosecutors said that all of the dead and many of the wounded were police.
President Medvedev reacted by dismissing Ingushetia's Interior Minister, declaring on state television that "this terrorist act could have been avoided". He ordered the federal Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliyev, to present proposals for toughening security in the region.
"I believe this was not only a result of problems connected to terrorist activities, but also a result of the unsatisfactory performance of the republic's law enforcement agencies," Mr Medvedev said.
In a sign of official desperation over spiralling violence by Islamist militants in the North Caucasus, however, Ingushetia's Kremlin-appointed President lashed out at the West.
Yunus-Bek Yevkurov accused Britain, the US and Israel of fomenting unrest in the region, while also blaming Islamist militants.
"I am miles from believing that Arabs are behind this. There are other more serious forces there...We understand whose interests these are: the United States, Britain, and Israel too," Mr Yevkurov told Russian News Service radio.
"The West will keep seeking to prevent Russia from reviving the former Soviet might."
Prosecutors said that a Russian-made Gazelle truck smashed through a security gate at the police headquarters and sped into a courtyard where officers were lined up for inspection. Police shot at the driver, said Svetlana Gorbakova, a spokeswoman for investigators.
The device left a crater four metres wide and two metres deep. It went off near the police armoury, causing ammunition to explode.
The suicide bomber struck in a densely-populated part of Nazran and the blast smashed windows and damaged balconies in apartment buildings up to 500 metres away. Officials said that at least 10 of the wounded were children.
Rescue workers said that the death toll could rise because they were still searching for people in the rubble of the police building. The scale of the casualties overwhelmed Nazran's medical facilities and an emergency plane was despatched to nearby Beslan to airlift the most critically injured for treatment in Moscow.
The assault undermined the Kremlin's claim to have stabilised the North Caucasus region, which includes Ingushetia, Chechnya and Dagestan. Militants have mounted almost daily attacks on police and Interior Ministry troops since Moscow declared victory in April in its decade-long war to defeat separatists in Chechnya.
Mr Yevkurov, who was badly hurt in an assassination attempt by another suicide bomber in June, said that the latest attack was carried out by Islamist militants who were avenging successful security operations against them along Ingushetia's border with Chechnya. He added: "It was an attempt to destabilise the situation and sow panic."
Ingushetia's construction minister was shot dead in his office last week, and a local Supreme Court Judge was killed shortly before the attempt to assassinate Mr Yevkurov.
President Kadyrov of Chechnya threatened a campaign to "liquidate" militants in Ingushetia, raising fears of a spreading conflict. He said: "We have enough political will and strength to withstand this evil. We have a common enemy and a common goal of neutralising it."
Analysts say that Islamist rebels have found fertile soil for recruitment among young people alienated by deep poverty in Ingushetia and brutal attempts by security forces to suppress dissent. Rights organisations accused Mr Yevkurov's predecessor, Murat Zyazikov, of widespread abuses, including torture and killings by security officials.
Mr Yevkurov threatened to pursue militants relentlessly after he was appointed by Mr Medvedev last October. But he has also set a more conciliatory tone by pledging to punish abuses and crack down on corruption.
 At least 19 people have been killed and more than 50 others wounded in a suspected suicide attack on a police station in Russia's southern Ingushetia region. The bombing is the latest attack in the mainly Muslim region, which has seen an upsurge in violence in the past few months. The blast occurred after a truck broke through security gates at police headquarters in Nazran, Ingushetia's largest city, as officers gathered for a morning check on Monday, Russian agencies reported. "Practically all the cars and buildings in the yard of the police headquarters were completely destroyed," the Interfax news agency quoted a law-enforcement source as saying. The explosion killed and wounded police officers in the compound and local residents in homes nearby, officials said. At least nine children were said to be among the wounded, Svetlana Gorbakova of the regional branch of the Russian prosecutor general's office said. Rise in violence Kremlin authorities have largely blamed Islamist fighters for recent violence in the region, which lies in Russia's volatile North Caucasus. Shaun Walker, Moscow correspondent for the UK's Independent newspaper, told Al Jazeera that attacks in the region appeared to becoming "nastier and more frequent". "Although there is a lot of violence in this region on a regular basis, it's still relatively unusual to have suicide bombings and a bombing of this scale," he said, adding Monday's attack appeared to be the work of the "local Islamic insurgency". "These attacks have been happening with alarming regularity. What we've seen in the last week or so is a series of slightly larger scale attacks. Taken overall it is a really quite a scary picture for Russia and the leaders of these republics. "In a sense it does seem a little bit like the Caucasus is spiralling out of control." Caucasus bloodshed Last week, Ruslan Amerkhanov, the region's construction minister, was shot dead inside his own office. Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Ingushetia's president, was badly injured in June after a suicide bomber attacked his car. Moscow has long struggled to impose the Kremlin's authority in the North Caucasus region, which has been the site of two wars in Chechnya and hundreds of violent attacks since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. While large-scale fighting in Chechnya, Ingushetia's neighbour, has ended, rebels continue to mount hit-and-run attacks and skirmishes. Bloodshed has surged in recent months and increasingly spilled into the republic's neighbours. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
Growing lawlessness and Islamist violence in Dagestan, Chechnya and neighbouring Ingushetia are undermining the Kremlin's control of its southern flank.
The attacks are the latest in a sharp upswing in violence against civilians across the region, where a local minister was shot dead in his office earlier this week.
The seven women were shot by rebels at around the same time as separatists attacked and killed four policemen manning a nearby checkpoint in Buinaksk, a town 41 km from the local capital, Makhachkala.
"At least four died when they attacked the traffic police. Around the same time they entered the sauna and shot seven women," a spokesman for local police said.
Separately, four policemen and two separatists died in a shootout in Chechnya, Russian news agencies reported today.
The Chechen deaths occurred in an abandoned house near the capital Grozny, RIA news agency said.
Five other security force officers were also injured in a separate clash in the republic on Thursday, Interfax reported.
On Wednesday, Ingushetia's construction minister was shot at close range in his heavily guarded office.
In Chechnya three human rights activists have been shot and killed in the past month, two earlier this week and one in July.
 By Jamie Glazov Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Yelena Maglevannaya, a journalist from Volgograd, who has asked for political asylum in Finland earlier this month. She risks persecution in Russia because of her writing about tortures of Chechens in Russian prisons. She also campaigned in defense of political prisoners such as Mikhail Trepashkin, demanded repeal of July 2006 laws which enable the Kremlin to assassinate enemies of Russia, and ran a web-site dedicated to the memory of Alexander Litvinenko. FP: Yelena Maglevannaya, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Maglevannaya: Thank you. FP: Tell about the events which have led to your flight. Maglevannaya: The main reason why I decided to leave Russia was the threat to my liberty, and possibly even life, in case I would have stayed there. The authorities were about to fabricate criminal charges against me, since I refused to obey the unfair court decision - to publish a refutation of my articles and to pay 'libel damages' to the prison-guards. In addition, I received threats from nationalist organizations, as I was defending the rights of Chechens - 'enemies of Russia'. The FSB repeatedly summoned me for 'interviews' and warned me that I would be in big trouble unless I stop doing that. All that combined has led me to this decision. Read more ...Source: FPMYelena Maglevannaya
Latest recipients of The MASH Award
ROSTOV-ON-DON, RUSSIA - Prosecutors in Chechnya say they have detained a young man accused of shooting his sister to death in an honor killing. Prosecutors say the young man has confessed to killing his sister with multiple gunshots because of her “immoral behavior.” They said in a statement Saturday that the murder was the latest in a string of killings and disappearances of women in the region. About 30 women aged 18 to 27 have been killed or gone missing since last fall. Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov said recently that some of the victims were rightfully shot by their male relatives for their “loose morals.” Kadyrov has carried out a campaign to impose Islamic values and strengthen the traditional customs of predominantly Muslim Chechnya. Read more ...Source: APH/T: Jihad Watch
 Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya's president, is trying to impose Islamic values
and strengthen traditional customs in mostly Muslim Chechnya.
At right, he danced with a Chechen girl in Grozny, Russia.GROZNY, Russia – The president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at the mosque and explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die. Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had "loose morals" and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings. "If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed," Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic. The 32-year-old former militia leader is trying to impose Islamic values and strengthen traditional customs in predominantly Muslim Chechnya, aiming to blunt the appeal of hardline Islamic separatists and shore up his power. Some in Russia say Kadyrov's attempt to create an Islamic society violates the Russian constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and separation of church and state. But the Kremlin backs him, seeing him as the key to keeping the separatists in check. Read more ...Source: APRamzan Kadyrov
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
GROZNY, Russia: The bullnecked president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at the mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die. Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had "loose morals" and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings. "If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed," Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic. The 32-year-old former militia leader is carrying out a campaign to impose Islamic values and strengthen the traditional customs of predominantly Muslim Chechnya, in an effort to blunt the appeal of hardline Islamic separatists and shore up his power. In doing so, critics say, he is setting up a dictatorship where Russian laws do not apply. Some in Russia say Kadyrov's attempt to create an Islamic society violates the Russian constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and a separation of church and state. But the Kremlin has given him its staunch backing, seeing him as the key to keeping the separatists in check, and that has allowed him to impose his will. Read more ...Source: APH/T: Weasel ZippersRamzan Kadyrov
Latest recipient of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
Vladimir Putin was the first head of a non-Muslim majority state to speak at the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a gathering of 57 Muslim states, in October 2003. That was a political and diplomatic feat, especially since Russia was waging a long-running war in Chechnya at the time. Putin stressed that 15% of the total population of the Russian Federation are Muslim, and that all the inhabitants of eight of its 21 autonomous republics are Muslim, and he won observer member status with the organisation, thanks to support from Saudi Arabia and Iran. Since then, Putin and other Russian leaders, including the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claim that Russia “is, to some extent, a part of the Muslim world.” In an interview with Al Jazeera on 16 October 2003, Putin stressed that, unlike Muslims living in western Europe, those in Russia were indigenous and that Islam had been present on Russian territory long before Christianity. So Russia now claims to have a privileged political relationship with the Arab and Muslim world and believes that, as a mostly European state, it has a historic vocation as a mediator between the western and Muslim worlds. Read more ...Source: Middle East OnlineH/T: Weasel Zippers
Telnik reports that the Jihadis in Ingushetia have set up a website, Hunafa.com, to serve as an information hub for their activities. Although not as slick as its parent site, KavkazCenter.com, it has the same function. According to Telnik, if the new site remains online and serves its purpose, it will indicate that the Jihadis in Ingushetia are growing stronger. Source: Jihadica
 MOSCOW, November 13(RIA Novosti) - Russia's Supreme Court has ruled to ban al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, classifying it as a terrorist organization, the General Prosecutor's Office said on Thursday.
"The Supreme Court has upheld a request by the General Prosecutor's Office to acknowledge the international organization al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb a terrorist organization and ban its activities in Russia," the office said on its website.
Based on the court's decision, the organization will be put on the federal list of terrorist organizations.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, previously known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, is an Islamist militant organization aiming to overthrow the Algerian government and establish Islamist rule. The group targets Algerian, U.S. and French nationals and facilities, and has been classified a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU.
The organization claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack in March 2007, which killed one Russian and several Algerian nationals when a roadside bomb went off 130 kilometers from the Algerian capital as gas pipeline construction workers were returning by bus to their base camp. The group said the attack was an act of retribution to those Russians waging war against Islam in Chechnya. Source: RIA Novosti
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